Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), Cellular Biotechnology, Baldiri Reixac 15-21, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
Biosens Bioelectron. 2013 May 15;43:297-303. doi: 10.1016/j.bios.2012.12.049. Epub 2013 Jan 2.
Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is a powerful tool to manipulate cells and molecules in microfluidic chips. However, few practical applications using DEP exist. An immediate practical application of a carbon-electrode DEP system, in removing PCR inhibitors from a sample, is reported in this work. We use a high throughput carbon-electrode DEP system to trap yeast cells from a natural sample (fermented grape must) and then in situ remove contaminants that interfere with PCR analysis. Retrieval of this enriched and purified yeast population from the DEP system then allows for a significant increase of sensitivity during PCR analysis. Furthermore, the fact that DEP can discriminate between viable and non-viable cells minimizes the number of false positives commonly obtained when using PCR alone. Experimental results provide clear evidence that the carbon-electrode DEP-based sample preparation step can readily and effectively clean environmental samples from natural contaminants and improve PCR sensitivity.
介电泳（DEP）是一种在微流控芯片中操纵细胞和分子的强大工具。然而，使用DEP 的实际应用很少。本工作报道了一种碳电极 DEP 系统在去除样品中 PCR 抑制剂方面的直接实际应用。我们使用高通量碳电极 DEP 系统从天然样品（发酵葡萄汁）中捕获酵母细胞，然后就地去除干扰 PCR 分析的污染物。从 DEP 系统中回收这种富集和纯化的酵母种群，然后允许在 PCR 分析期间显著提高灵敏度。此外，DEP 能够区分活细胞和非活细胞，这最大限度地减少了单独使用 PCR 时通常获得的假阳性数量。实验结果清楚地表明，基于碳电极 DEP 的样品制备步骤可以轻易有效地从天然污染物中清洁环境样品并提高 PCR 灵敏度。
